I NEVER knew the world in write
So beautiful could be
As I have seen it here to-day,
Beside the wintry sea;
A new earth, bride of a new heaven,
Has been revealed to me.

The sunrise blended wave and cloud
In one broad flood of gold,
But touched with rose the world's white robes
In every curve and fold;
While the blue air did over all
Its breath in wonder hold.

Earth was a statue half awake
Beneath her Sculptor's hand:
How the Great Master bends with love
Above the work He planned,
Easy it is, on such a day,
To feel and understand.

The virgin-birth of Bethlehem,
That snow-pure infancy,
Warm with the rose-bloom of the skies, —
Life's holiest mystery, —
God's utter tenderness to man,
Seems written on all I see.

For earth, this vast humanity,
The Lord's own body is;
To this our life He entereth in,
Shares all its destinies;
And we shall put His whiteness on
When we are wholly His.

And so the day dies like a dream,
A prophecy divine:
Dear Master, through us perfectly
Shape Thou Thy white design,
Nor let one life be left a blot
On this fair world of Thine!